Thick coat and artificial snow save polar bears from Moscow heat

The Moscow Zoo staff arranged a small winter for their polar bears. A special snow cannon was installed in their open-air cage. The heat wave is a real torture for bears so zookeepers try to make their habitation as close to an Arctic environment as possible.
This Himalayan bear hides from the scorching sun in the shade or in its cave and occasionally refreshes itself in an artificial stream. The sloth bear prefers to spend the whole day lying in high grass and zookeepers water the grass to keep it wet.
Those suffering the hardest from this summer’s heat are tundra animals, the musk oxen, Moscow Zoo spokesperson Natalya Istratova says. The soil in their cages is regularly watered to cool the temperature and give the animals some relief from the torrid weather.